When comparing Elder Scrolls Online vs The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the Slant community recommends Elder Scrolls Online for most people. In the question“What are the best Action games on Steam?”Elder Scrolls Online is ranked 10th while The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is ranked 14th. The most important reason people chose Elder Scrolls Online is:

ESO's character system is based on skill lines; each class provides three. There are *dozens* of other skill lines, including all weapons and armor, which are open to all characters. Resource stats (Health, Stamina, Magicka) aren't tied to class either. This means any character can use any gear and be built to fill any role.

Pros

Pro

Unrestrictive class system

ESO's character system is based on skill lines; each class provides three. There are dozens of other skill lines, including all weapons and armor, which are open to all characters. Resource stats (Health, Stamina, Magicka) aren't tied to class either. This means any character can use any gear and be built to fill any role.

Pro

Built on twenty years of game lore

Elder Scrolls games have always placed the world's unabashedly bizarre mythology in the forefront, and ESO is no exception. Between quest storylines, hundreds of in-game books, passing NPC dialog, and the landscape itself, ESO presents a world that feels bigger than the player and can be incredibly immersive.

Pro

Limited skill bar encourages build variety

There are only six skill slots (five regular and one "ultimate") available at any one time. A character can swap between two equipped weapon sets, making at most 12 total skills available in combat. With well over 100 skills to choose from, finding two characters with exactly the same build is the exception, not the rule.

Pro

High build variety keeps PvP interesting

Though "flavors of the month" will arise in any competitive game, ESO's versatile characters and MOBA-like limitation on simultaneous skill availability greatly reward creative builds and counter-building.

Pro

Immersive first person play

While the game can be played in third person (which may work better in PvP), there is an option to play in first person view which keeps in tradition of the view found in other Elder Scroll titles. This gives this MMO the feeling of playing Skyrim or Oblivion, which should appeal to those who are fans or familiar. It is also a unique way to play an MMO, which could appeal to those tired of traditional third person view MMOs.

Pro

Good single player TES game

With an MMO-ish progression. Also, has great voice acting.

Pro

Excellent controller support

Not only is controller support provided, but a combination of elements of the games design (minimal UI, enforced focus on favorite/preferred actions, and a clear vision to design console support in early on) means play with a controller is a great, comfortable experience.

Pro

High immersion as minimalist HUD brings focus to action and the world

Minimalist HUD-approach brings focus to action and the world for immersion rather than focus on hotkeys, cooldowns, and other immersion-breaking intrusions

Pro

Unrestrictive skill-based RPG system

Skyrim has no concept of character classes, and there are no restrictions on what equipment or magic a given character can use or learn. A character's capabilities are defined by skills (e.g. heavy armor, marksman, enchantment) which automatically improve as they are used. Levels are gained by increasing skills, and each level grants one perk -- a passive, secondary effect which further enhances a particular skill -- and increases an attribute of your choice (Magicka, Stamina or Health).

Pro

Moral choices that can affect gameplay

Things like stealing (and getting caught), fighting or killing in towns will change how the game plays as now those people or towns will be angry with the player, which makes things much more difficult. There are also many moral choices in game such as if one should betray the person who gave then their quest by keeping the treasure they were hired to return. All of these things will change how the game plays and how NPC's react to the character making for a simulated real world of consequences.

Pro

The Elder Scrolls series stretches back 20 years and has always focused on providing a rich world to explore. Skyrim inherits the stories and world-building of over half a dozen previous games.

Pro

Huge variety of mods

Bethesda Softworks has upheld a tradition of releasing their internal content-creation tools to the public since Morrowind (2002). Many modders transition to new Bethesda games as they are released, bringing their experience with them and helping newcomers through forums and wikis. As a result, Skyrim's mod selection is outstanding in both variety and quality.

Cons

No cons yet!

Con

Combat is too simple

Fights within the game don't have very many options. "Headshots" don't matter, and most combat options in the game are poorly balanced.

Few examples:

Doesn't really matter if you go mace, sword or axe, fire, ice or lightning, or even two handed vs dual wielding. The options mostly add flavor to your character and little else.

Despite the fact that you might have ranged attacks, dragons are impossible to hit while in the air, so you end up fighting them similarly to a melee character.

"Twincasting" the first healing spell is actually worse than just casting it once in each hand.

Illusion magic becomes useless at later levels, since the spells don't do anything if the enemy is too high level and enemies scale to your level.

Enemies are too stupid to make hiding a bad thing.

The worst one is leveling as an Alteration mage, which gives you access to the Dragonskin spell, granting maximum armor for 30 seconds and has a 5 second cast time. Or you could just go Heavy Armor, level that up (so it weighs nothing) and have maximum armor ALWAYS without ever having to cast an Alteration spell before combat ever again.

Combat comes down to how you leveled, not how you play.

Con

Immersion can be broken due to game limitations

While the game offers players many choices some of these choices are not reflected in the game accurately. There are instances where NPCs should know who your character is or what classes they belong to but due to the limitations of the tech used in the game it is unable to "remember" these things and so NPC text will often break immersion in the game by saying the wrong things.

Con

Buggy and crash prone

Skyrim, like all Bethesda in house game engines (GameBryo) is buggy and prone to crashing. Non modded games have plenty of issues, but to then add mods on top is just asking for a crash or corrupt game save.

There are still many community mods for Skyrim that try to make the game more stable by addressing memory issues and general buggynes. While the game is not as buggy as it was upon release, there are still many people that have issues with the game crashing on boot or just randomly which is why these mods are still widely used and still very relevant.